Renewed or canceled? This social TV app thinks it knows

New Jersey-based iOS app developer Andrew Fernandez just published the V2.0 of his social TV app Renewed, which takes on other apps in this space with an interesting twist. Renewed says it knows which shows are going to get canceled, and which ones will get picked up for another season, simply based on the data it gathers from check-ins.

The app displays a health meter for each and every show. These predictions may be based on a small user base for now, but Fernandez told me that he has bigger plans for this kind of data. “My big goal for the data is to make it available to networks and studios as another measuring tool similar to Nielsen Ratings,” he told me via email, adding: “Some companies are correlating the social data with spikes in ratings, I would like to actually create real-time accurate ratings.’

Competing with Nielsen solely based on check-in data may sound like a very ambitious proposition, but Renewed’s approach definitely shows us that new technology is going to offer new ways to measure viewership and engagement. Fernandez said that he plans to integrate automatic content recognition technology to automate check-ins and also prevent people from cheating the system.

In the near future, Fernandez also wants to add more content sources to Renewed. Version 2.0 of the app already allows users to automatically jump to a specific episode of the show within the Netflix, HBO Go and iTunes apps. Renewed also makes it possible to comment on an episode via Facebook or Twitter, and check in via Miso and GetGlue.